Music cannot select my own from my Music

[Jim Sachs]

JohnWho - thanks for your efforts in tracking this down. I don't have Win7 (haven't ever seen it, actually), so I suspect the problem is caused by differences in the way it brings up the Settings system.

[flip]

To all
I am running the registered version.
Just to simplify things what do I do?
Or is it a problem for Jim to fix?
Or could it be I have a faulty Down Load?
If that is the case Jim could I PM you my registration numbers and you give me the correct down load please?

After Christmas I will try to get the CD even if I have to get a friend to send it to me. NZ has still not answered me re buying the CD from them.
Jim do you have a supplier in Aust.

I still have Ver 2.0 and it is fantastic that is the only reason I want my fishies with that particular music.

Flip.

[Dale]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

JohnWho - thanks for your efforts in tracking this down. I don't have Win7 (haven't ever seen it, actually), so I suspect the problem is caused by differences in the way it brings up the Settings system.  

Nope. Exactly reproduced with 10d on WXP Pro.

[There is some chance that it depends on Canonguitar.sgt being present in the MA3 folder - but that's the result of another "bug", discussed elsewhere in the forum. I didn't test without that file there.]

[Dale]

Originally posted by flip:

To all
I am running the registered version.
Just to simplify things what do I do?

Flip.  

Get MA3 running (however you wish).
Press the space bar.
Click on the Music button, add your music track, remove the CanonGuitar.sgt track. Click OK.
Click on the Program Settings button, verify that you have the Music setting checked. Click OK,
Click OK
Listen to your music.

Footnote: if you right-click on the desktop, select Personalize, select screen saver, select settings, and click on Music - you will see that it says CanonGuitar.sgt. But if you go to "preview" you will hear your music.

At lest, that's how it works on the 3 systems that I tested.

[jleslie]

Nice summary Dale...

[harris]

Originally posted by Dale:

..."Thank you for being so helpful to this 72yld young fella." - don't mention it. [70yld whippersnapper]  

Feldon33/Jav400;

After reading the statement above a poll is in order!

It would be very interesting, and a marketing statistic for Jim/prolific to have a "blind" poll at the beginning of the forum to see the average age of Marine Aquarium users. The poll's statistics would be visualized using a bar graph.

What do you think, can it be done?

[JohnWho]

Originally posted by jleslie:

Nice summary Dale...  

Well, he could have simply cut and pasted my earlier post, and saved some time.



The good news - we've solved flip's problem.

[JohnWho]

Originally posted by harris:

Feldon33/Jav400;

After reading the statement above a poll is in order!

It would be very interesting, and a marketing statistic for Jim/prolific to have a "blind" poll at the beginning of the forum to see the average age of Marine Aquarium users. The poll's statistics would be visualized using a bar graph.

What do you think, can it be done?  

Should we have a poll to determine whether we should have a poll,

or would that be too much?

[Dale]

Originally posted by JohnWho:

Well, he could have simply cut and pasted my earlier post, and saved some time.

 

Yes, you found the solution, and I said exactly what you wrote - perhaps with a bit more step-by-step.

We actually made two mistakes in diagnosing flip's problem:

1. We didn't insist on an actual description of all of the exact steps that were being performed. However, my experience is that some folks find it "insulting" to be told that "I open Music Playlist from the Marine Aquarium settings." or "Nope, I can't get it to work either with or without the spaces" are not complete descriptions of what they did.

2. We never thought to ask "what music plays when you have done that"?

Of course, we also assumed (until you observed differently) that all the ways of getting to the Screen Saver Settings panel would have identical behavior - because the panel looked the same, however we got there.

And Jim assumed that W7 could be blamed for the problem - when in fact it was a residual bug that had not previously been reported.

[Jim, very-limited testing suggests that this bug was introduced in the version that added several buttons, "move", etc. to the Music Playlist panel]

[Nicki]

Don't we all include our ages in our forum profiles? And shame on us if we all claim to be forever 29!

And I get what you are saying Dale. With all the finickiness of Windows Vista and Windows 7, keystroke by keystroke descriptions of the problem might not be a bad idea, even though Windows may not be to blame in this particular case. I'm not really sold on Windows 7 yet. My new desktop is fantastic in all its quad core glory, but I would rather have XP pro on there right now. Windows 7 seems to have been dumbed down and it's less intuitive. Search for example is not an improvement in any way IMHO .

And remember you can't spell finicky without Nicki (okay that doesn't quite work in print).

[JohnWho]

@Dale -

I've been doing PC troubleshooting for years, and agree totally with you.

In fact, your response in post #2 in this thread is what got me wondering about flip's problem. Since I'm not closely familiar with MA3 other than as an end-user, I thought your response odd - why should he give you the exact steps he's using to add a music selection when there is only one way to do this? I finally got around to reading the "read me", and lo and behold, there is this "spacebar" method while the program is running that gets one to the settings menu too. I had no clue, until after using this to diag flip's problem, that there is a difference in how the program handles this settings menu and the "screen saver" settings menu.

I've discovered often that one learns a lot about PCs, OS's, and programs when attempting troubleshooting, as I have here.

[Dale]

You read the readme?????

I'm shocked. I've been told that nobody does that, so it's not important!

[JohnWho]

It was during a weak moment while waxing nostalgic over the Christmas holiday.

[Wizwad]

There's a 'readme'?




Kidding!

[/runs away]

[flip]

It is going to be difficult to thank just one person here who helped me.

After three attempts it FINALLY worked.

There is one huge Word here that causes many problems when trying to solve a problem in 99% of help forums. That word is "ASSUME"

One of the very first lessons I learnt when I started Technical trade teaching. Never assume any thing the only reason is you could easily start giving a lesson on how do a specific task on to find out after finishing the lesson your students had no idea what you were talking about because they had never used the tools required to do that task.

I once attended a course on how to use your Digital Camera. First thing you would do would be take out and turn on your cameras. One hour later all the cameras were still in their cases and every one left still not knowing how to use their cameras. What we did know was how good the instructor thought he was. That instructor was sacked not long after that.

I just purchased a book on W7. In practically all cases the first step is turn computer on. Sounds simple but there are many out there would not even know how to do that. My wife and 45yld Daughter for starters.

Again thank you every one for your help. I hope Jim gets that little concern sorted out.

Flip/Keith

[JohnWho]

*writes down note that whenever flip posts a computer problem, first ask him if he has turned the computer on*

@ flip - So, would it be safe to maks the assumption that we can assume you are happy with MA3 now?

[Dale]

However, in a "forum" setting, it is impractical to not make assumptions. If we start without assumptions, we're going to make a lot of people angry.

Q: I just purchased MA3, but it doesn't work.
A: Did you get any error messages when you installed it?
Q: No, that went fine.
.... several steps later, it turns out that he/she thinks "downloading" is the same as "installing".....

Q: I just purchased MA3, but it doesn't work.
A: Did you download it?
Q: Of course I did.
A: Did you install it?
Q: I'm not stupid!!!!!!

In a classroom, it's relatively easy to observe the "blank" looks, realize that some assumptions are wrong, go back and lay the groundwork, etc....

Here in a forum, we can't see expressions.

If it goes like this:

A: "Could you describe exactly what steps you are doing, to add your music to the MA3 playlist and then remove the Guitar track?"
Q: I folowed the steps laid out by MS Windows W7 book (what book?)
I open Music Playlist from the Marine Aquarium settings. (what steps came before that?)

[i.e., not describing exactly the steps to plug in the power cord, turn on the PC, .......]

... I can "assume" some things, and go in the direction that I think will be most productive --- or I can say "no, I'm not going to try to help until you answer my questions."

...and regardless of assumptions, it takes a lot longer in a forum than in the classroom.

[Jim Sachs]

Speaking of assumptions...
In the early days, the program's filename was Fish.scr. A good friend of mine was working the telephone support line, and spent almost two hours on the phone with an elderly gentleman from Florida. The man claimed that he had downloaded the program, but it was not showing up on his computer. Time after time, my friend would walk him through the steps to download it, then do a Search with wider and wider parameters, but the program just could not be found. Finally, my friend asked the man how he was spelling "Fish" when he typed it into the Search box.

"Why, F I R S H, of course!"

[JohnWho]

Well, there you go -

"firsh things firsh", I always say!

[Dale]

Everybody knows that the word is spelled ghoti.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti